>>> Item number 22681 from WRITERS LOG9312C --- (101 records) ---- <<<
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1993 18:35:02 JST
Reply-To: WRITERS
Sender: WRITERS
From: Mike Barker
Subject: WOTD: Seppuku and Hara-kiri
[for those who may be coming in late - I live in Japan, have been here
for the last seven years, and sometimes know a bit about the place.
that's why mommie mj suggested I might know something about this.
Anyone who has studied it, though, please feel free to add your
information, ok?]
From my pocket dictionary:
seppuku - (commit) hara-kiri; a happy dispatch
(NOT in the dictionary)
hara is the general term used for the abdomen, and kiri might be a form
of the verb for cut (kiru), so hara-kiri merely means to cut the
abdomen. for example, kubi o kiru means to cut the throat, and is a
common euphemism for being fired (a running concern here, even though
almost no one ever is fired). Incidentally, the phrasing should
probably be "hara o kiru," which suggests the original term is someone's
corruption of the Japanese phrase.
background: most Japanese aren't quite sure what you are talking about
when you say hara-kiri. Seppuku is the word they recognize.
of course, for an American audience, they are more likely to recognize
harry carry (harikari?) so unless you want to explain in the middle,
maybe you need to use the word they are familiar with.
BTW - katana is the word for the large sword, the samurai sword.
the original post mentioned that. Since Bon (I think) mentioned
bokken (the wooden practice sword?), I think some people probably
know more about the swords than I do, although I have had the
dubious honor of being shown a private collection of real samurai
swords (suckers are heavy! and sharp!)
that's probably as much as most people want to know - the rest is a bit
of rambling about the topic, because it is peculiar.
lots of myth about this here. it is fairly clearly a part of the class
system, and was restricted to samurai and rulers (think knights and
dukes - you'll be pretty close). under bushido (the local code of
chivalry, roughly), people got in trouble lots of ways. seppuku might
be imposed as punishment (fairly common) or voluntarily undertaken to
clear your honor (somewhat hard to determine how common this really was,
although it is a staple of dramas).
If you are doing it right, there is a whole little ritual - white
clothes, washing yourself, wrap the small sword (I think) in paper, have
your favorite helper standing by (he would chop the head off at some
point), and so on.
I should probably point out that as far as I can tell, seppuku was NOT a
way to escape from failure - that you did through stoicism. Seppuku was
a positive statement, taking responsibility for your (or your underlings)
actions. One of the points that often is missed is that very often
leaders would commit seppuku because of their underlings actions -
imagine the lieutenant (or higher) of a troop involved in a massacre
committing seppuku to "clear" the honor of the troop. You were also
supposed to request permission to perform it - and apparently it was
something of an honor to be allowed to take this action.
The dramas do, fairly often, show someone deciding to commit seppuku
because someone doubted their word, framed them unjustly, etc. I'm not
sure how much this happened in real life.
One touchstone - the 47 Ronin is a famous, well-documented story of 47
samurai who had the "bad taste" to allow their master to be killed.
They waited several years (in disgrace! they should have killed
themselves immediately!), then gathered again and caught the opposing
leader off-guard. Having killed him and paraded his head through town,
they committed seppuku for not having prevented the killing in the first
place. They are honored in part for being meticulous in handling the
dilemma - how do you punish the opposition and still correctly punish
yourself.
Incidentally, one of the dilemmas of bushido was that while it
established a warrior class (the samurai), it also said they should not
get involved in business (NO MONEY!). With a growing merchant class,
just as in Europe, some of the samurai bent the rules a bit, trying to
match up military power with economic power. Usually (well, according
to the dramas, at least) they were caught - the merchants killed or sent
out of town, and the samurai usually condemned to seppuku.
Somewhere I have a copy of an eyewitness report by a European to a death
by seppuku. I'll dig that out and summarize it sometime.
I watch samurai dramas every week. I like them, even if they do pretty
much follow a formula. They are very much like the old westerns - good
guys, bad guys, a fight, trickery, and so on. But the good guys always
win in the end!
If anyone is interested, I can outline the main plots of some of the
staple shows. Some of these shows have been running for 20 years, with
essentially the same plot each week. I think I can guarantee that most
Japanese will recognize various dialogue lines and trademark actions.
the whacko in the east
tink